


A Simple Truth

by SusieBeeca



Category: Steven Universe (Cartoon)
Genre: Alcohol, Conjoined Twins, Creepy Twin Language, Drunk Sex, F/F, Loss of Virginity, Off-Colours, Squirting, tentadick, threeway
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-01-07
Updated: 2019-02-05
Packaged: 2019-10-06 03:18:26
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 10,430
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17337599
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SusieBeeca/pseuds/SusieBeeca
Summary: When they finally arrive on Earth, the Off-Colours celebrate. Human celebrations---complete with booze---seem strange to them, but things end up getting stranger and stranger.The PWP companion piece is"How Do We Start?":D





	1. Tipsy

What a view.

Slowly and surely, the Earth’s mother-star dipped beneath the horizon, and peace came rolling across the land like the caress of an unseen deity.

The Off-Colours laughed and held each others’ hands; through the warm blush of camaraderie, they all leaned in and took deep, whispery breaths of the still night air, enjoying the closeness. Their first official night on Earth began as well as any of them could have imagined. Better, even. Under the darkening sky, stars came piercing their twinkling white points; the clouds were streaking with indigo and the air was like velvet, so much more welcoming than the arid Homeworld atmosphere. One by one they all relaxed, taking turns staring up at the changing sky. Padparadscha chased after the fireflies, and everyone else melted into the evening, for once feeling something akin to peace.

The Twins of Rutile were giggling together as Lars hurried his parents out the door, hiding his excitement under promises that the house would still be standing when they got back. When the door slammed behind them, their Captain turned around, and, even without his cape, he struck a dramatic pose. “Time for the party to begin!”

Fluorite raised several of her eyebrows. “And… what… do you mean… by that?”

He paused, eyeing the side of the house. Once the two humans---both of the “Barriga” type, differentiated by “Mr” and “Mrs” to Lars’ friends---disappeared around the corner, Lars let out a very un-Captain-like giggle and disappeared back inside. Once he re-emerged, his whole face was glowing. The mischievous twinkle in his eyes and the bag in his fist aroused some suspicion, but when Rhodonite asked him what he had in mind, his answer was enough to alleviate her fears:

“We’re going to do what every teenager does when he has friends over and his parents are out of the house,” Lars announced as he placed the bag on the ground.  
After rummaging through it for a moment, he stood up in triumph with bottles clenched in his hands. “We raid the liquor cabinet!”

He blew dust off of some of the older bottles as he explained this ‘totally normal and legal human thing’ to his friends. The Off-Colours were intrigued; though intoxicants weren’t unheard of on Homeworld, they’d never encountered alcohol before, and were eager to try an Earthly bonding ritual.

Once their makeshift bartender had finished mixing their drinks, he plugged his phone into the speakers and turned them high enough to set the mood, but low enough to allow for conversation. Thumbing the rim of his scotch, he watched with a smirk as his crew took nervous, gagging sips of their cocktails. 

Their initial reviews were not great.

“This tastes like the time I tripped and broke three teeth,” Rhodonite muttered.

“Humans do this for fun?” Right Rutile said after almost spitting out her gin. Her sister wasn’t faring much better: “Are all humans insane, or just you?”

Fluorite said, horrifying everyone, “Its… Not. The worst thing. I’ve… Had. In. My mouth.”

Padparadscha then predicted that, yes, all humans were insane.

But with the soft summer breeze blowing and the crickets chirping they began to loosen up, cheeks flushed and smiles growing. Before long a half-tipsy Padparadscha got up and started to dance to the _thump-thump-thump_ of the music; she was always two beats too late, but it was so innocently charming that nobody could find it within themselves to correct her. As the Rutile twins started snapping their fingers, Lars got up to swing Padparadscha around---but was startled by a loud thud from behind him.

To everyone’s surprise, Fluorite turned out to be a very cheap date. Despite her size, one rose spritzer had sent her tumbling onto her side. Over the sounds of her contented snoring, Padparadscha informed Lars of the situation and suggested he retrieve a blanket for her. Lars tried to vain to explain to her that nothing short of a circus tent would work, and, no, he did not have those in the house, but Padparadscha was insistent, so eventually he gave up and threw a quilt over her shoulders and pushed a few sofa cushions under her head. 

The next casualty was Padparadscha herself. She got through a few rum and cokes before staggering up to Lars, about to predict that she was dangerously intoxicated---but the digestive system she’d shapeshifted beat her to the punch and she lurched forward, puking all over his pants and boots. She passed out during his tantrum. After kicking his boots off and draining the sick from them, he grabbed Padparadscha under his arm and went stomping off into the house, bitching something about how he hated doing laundry.

The back door slammed behind him, and an awkward lull fell over the conversation. Rhodonite was the one who finally broke it.

“I guess that leaves us,” she said as she leaned over to skip past one of the many intolerable songs Lars had loaded into his phone. 

“What’s ‘laundry’?” Left Rutile asked.

“I think it has something to do with vomit,” her sister answered.

“No, you’ve got it wrong.” Rhodonite couldn’t decide if she wanted to laugh or flinch. “Well, only half-wrong. When cloth gets dirty, you have to mix it with soap and water to clean it off.”

They looked at her, perplexed. “How do you know that?”

Her face paled a little. “Part-Pearl,” she said quietly, and that effectively killed the conversation again.

The phone skipped a few times, then switched to a new song. This one was slower, the bass line steering its melody around as the singer wailed out incomprehensible lyrics.

“This wasn’t as much fun as Lars made it out to be,” Right said, her mouth in a thin crease.

Left did her best to shrug. “Maybe we’re doing it wrong.”

“What was that game that Lars tried to start before the other Barrigas left?” Rhodonite said, swirling a gloved finger around the surface of her drink. “I think he called it ‘Truth or…Jest?’”

“Truth or Dare,” Left corrected.

Right nodded. “An extremely mean-spirited game where humans try to embarrass each other.”

She clapped her hands in succession. “Great! Let’s play that!”

The Twins sighed, but they were both so happy to see Rhodonite actually excited about something for once they didn’t want to become wet blankets. After a moment of silent deliberation, a few back-and-forth nods that twins so often shared, Left took the role of the instigator. “Okay, Rhodonite. Truth or Dare?”

She pondered that for a moment---then downed her drink and poured herself a refill. “Truth!”

“Have you ever---”

But her sister interrupted: “If you could go back in time and shatter your Morganite, would you?”

The sudden look of worry on Rhodonite’s face made Left pause, but Right was a bit more persistent. “Come on, you can’t lie now! Would you?”

Rhodonite took a hefty swig, then she let her eyes trail down to her hands. All four of them rested on her knees, fingertips drifting over knuckles, before murmuring “No need. I suppose I already did it.”

“Wait, what?!”

“Am I hearing this right?”

Rhodonite’s little smile was infuriating. “No, you’re Left.”

“Don’t be a jerk!” she cried. “Did you just admit to shattering someone?”

“…Just because she didn’t like you?” Right finished.

The smile faded. “She did more than just ‘not like me’, but…” She pulled her knees to her chest and wrapped her arms around her legs, idly brushing off the grass that was stuck to her bare shin. “No. I didn’t. Not directly. I heard that after she… erm… ‘let’ an abomination like me escape, they put her to death.”

The Twins nodded solemnly, but they were still shaken. The fusions had been lucky enough to have the chance to split apart and blend in with Gem society long enough to search for others in need of help, so something as public as the execution of a Morganite must have been witnessed on a reconnaissance mission. It did explain why Ruby was so quiet on her return that one time… and it sickened both Rutiles to know that it was likely some of their sisters doing the execution itself.

As if reading their thoughts, Rhodonite peeked up at them and mumbled “I don’t judge any Rutile for doing her job, you know.”

“We know,” they said in unison. Living in constant fear had been exhausting, of course, but they were just now starting to realize they might have escaped a worse fate. Standing in shards all day long couldn’t be pleasant.

“Well, that got dark pretty quickly, didn’t it?” she said as she relaxed out of her curled-up pose. After a sip of her drink to steel herself, Rhodonite said: “So, my turn, I think. Truth or Dare, Twins?”

Left was still thinking about what it must be like to swing the chipper, to have to ignore pleas for mercy, so her mind was somewhere else. Right noticed this, and answered in her stead. “Truth.”

“Hm.” She thought carefully for a minute, and was startled to realize she really didn’t know much about the gems she’d spent so many years alongside. Though Fluorite was fond of telling (and re-telling) her multiple ‘How We Met’ stories---which were usually adorable---the stoic Twins had explained their emerging and left it at that. She’d been the one to find them almost a full rotation afterwards. It occurred to her that she had no clue what had happened to them during that interval.  
Part of her felt she should be ashamed to know so little about the gems she called friends… But, alcohol being what it was, her mind was more than a little blurry. Her Ruby started to show. An impish grin formed and she blurted out “How many lovers have you had?”

They looked at each other, back at her, then at each other again. “None,” Right deadpanned.

“None?”

“Ha! That’s two questions. I think that means you lose a point.”

“Wait, none? Really?” One swig later: “I’m not just talking about penetration. Oral sex counts! They don’t call it oral ‘fooling around’! It’s called sex for a reason!”

“’Oral… sex?’” They looked confused. “No, we haven’t talked dirty with anyone.”

Rhodonite gaped. It took her a moment to get over the sheer _innocence_ of that statement. “Wait! Wait.” As she usually did when she got flustered, she laced two mismatched hands together and used the remaining two to rub across the bridge of her nose. One eye opened, and she mumbled “Are you saying you’re… I mean… you’re virgins? _Total_ virgins?”

“As opposed to what?” Left said, a bit snippier than she’d intended.

Right cocked an eyebrow. “’Partial virgins’?”

“Well, no, I meant, er…” Still a little unsteady, Rhodonite got up, wiped more grass from her legs, and sat back down, one ankle folded over the other. “You haven’t done _anything_?” She was worrying a lip between her teeth as she nervously picked at her knuckles. “Not even a kiss?”

The Twins cautiously eyed each other. Left looked away first, down to where she was fidgeting with her uniform, but Right managed to meet her friend’s eyes. Half of them, at least. “We’ve been kissed.”

“By who?”

“ _Whom,_ ” Left muttered, still not looking up.

“I mean, it obviously wasn’t me,” Rhodonite said as she trailed a fingertip over the rim of her glass. “But it couldn’t have been Fluorite, and if you kissed Padparadscha, I swear I’ll---” She did a sudden double-take. “Wait, was it Lars?!”

“No, Rhodonite, it wasn’t any of you.” Right had to take another sip of her acrid drink to bleed the irritation out of her voice. Her twin took a hefty chug of her own. “Please stop guessing.”

“Was it one of your Kindergarten sisters?”

“I said stop guessing!”

Wiping her mouth, Right shivered as the alcohol burned down her throat. “They ran the moment they saw us. I doubt any of them were feeling particularly amorous.” It burned. It singed.

“And we’ve been hiding ever since,” Left murmured, her voice teetering between glum and drunk.

“Then who---”

Right held up a hand to silence her. After sparing a moment to glance at her sister for confirmation, she stared her friend dead in her uppermost eyes and said through a clenched jaw: “We’ve kissed _each other_ , Rhodonite.”

She let out a half-gasp, half-hiccup. Her blinking moved from eye to eye as that revelation wormed through the murk in her mind. “You mean…?”

“Yes.”

“Each other?”

“Yes.”

“At the same time?”

She rolled her eyes. “No, we scheduled different--- _yes_ , at the same time!”

It took Rhodonite awhile to process that… and, when she finally did, her reaction caught them both by surprise. Not disgust, not revulsion, but…  
“Oh, Twins,” she said softly, “That… that’s beautiful.”

The Twins looked at each other, stunned, then back to her.

“You don’t think it’s wrong?” Right began.

“Vile?” Left finished.

As if with a mind of their own, Left’s fingers drifted forward, inch by inch. They dusted over Rhodonite’s, and even though she pulled back, it didn’t feel like a rejection.

“Not repulsive. Not at all!” Her face shone with a newfound smile, and she leaned forward, resting her thicker elbows on her knees, cradling her chin in one palm. “I thought _I_ knew all about love, but you two? You’re something else entirely! I can’t…” With a sigh, she hugged herself. Two of her other hands went wandering over her calves. “I can’t even _imagine_ how lovely that kind of kiss would be. Even if you are virgins, you’ve done something no other gem has ever dreamed of!”

Left coughed, and Right rubbed the back of her neck. Lars had described alcohol as ‘social lubricant’, but at this point they both felt like things were getting a bit too slippery.

Rhodonite sucked on her teeth. “Erm. Um. I’m sorry… did I cross a line there?”

“Well… I… I’m not sure.”

Left sighed, her eyes crossing just slightly. “Are there even lines anymore?”

“Oh dear.” Right chuckled and patted her sister’s unused shoulder. “Things never end well when you start getting philosophical.”

“Okay! Okay.” Holding up two hands, she cupped the others together and closed her eyes, an unusually calm smile pulling up under her blush. “Now you get to ask _me_ something personal. It’s only fair.”

Left reached down and pulled the garnish from her drink. She popped it in her mouth and chewed on the lemon, rind and all. “Only fair,” she repeated, as a trickle of juice ran down her chin.

“You seemed surprised that we’re virgins,” Right said. “What about you?”

“Yesh!” It took a few choking gulps, but Left got the gin-soaked fruit down her throat and wiped her palm over her lips. “Are you a virgin?”

Her mouth went halfway between a giggle and a twist of embarrassment, but she recovered behind a cupped palm. “Of course I’m not,” she said quietly, though her voice was alight with a trace of happiness. “Ruby and Pearl have---”

“No,” Left interrupted. “Not them. _You._ ”

Right’s usual mask of stoicism cracked just a bit. “They might make love, but have you?”

“Is Rhodonite a virgin?”

“I…” She had to pause and reflect on that. Ruby and Pearl had shared their first times, but only as separate gems. Bound together, they were someone new, someone that had never felt gentle hands upon her body. “I, uh, yes, maybe,” she finally faltered, unable to look at either of the Rutiles. “I suppose I’m not—I mean—I haven’t…” She chewed the insides of her cheeks. “It’s different, being a fusion.” Feeling the conversation had hit a snag, she decided to throw the ball back to the other court. “Have you ever fused?”

“No.”

Left’s head was rolling. “We’ve tried.”

“…But we can’t get any closer than we already are,” Right added with a sigh as she pulled her sister’s chin up from her chest.

“But… you have kissed.”

“Yes. I don’t know why that’s so confusing for you.”

“It’s not confusing, it’s just… intriguing.” Rhodonite curled her toes and pressed her knees together. “Um. Well. Er… may I… see?”

They both jumped a little. “You want to watch?!”

Her words were a little slurred, but they still held a fragile sweetness. “…May I?”

Right smiled, and after a moment or two, the abashed look on her sister’s face faded, and she grew a grin of her own. “If you insist,” came the reply, but it was so quiet, so hushed, that Rhodonite hadn’t caught which one had spoken. 

They looked at each other, and then Right spoke to Left---something that Rhodonite had always dismissed as silly gibberish, but now that she was on the raw edge of intoxication, it sounded almost like a language.

_“Voo-too, sorrir?”_

_“Ie l’voo telmaw. El ossi.”_

She bobbed her head. _“Debemus.”_

Rhodonite tried not to giggle. “Oh, my!”

The Twins shared a quick nod, and then, without a moment for her to blink, their faces pressed together. Rhodonite gasped, recoiling in surprise, but the Twins hadn’t flinched. Their eyes were blissfully closed, their mouths opening, soft and gentle, parting and moving like ocean tides; fine lips met their match, and a quick glint of tongue flashed between teeth. Their blank shoulders were pressed together, and then Left lifted her arm and placed her hand on her sister’s throat. 

Rhodonite could barely move, but her pelvis clenched at the sight. Oh, sweet stars---she watched as Left’s spindly hand drifted down and clasped her twin’s breast through her uniform.

Her legs fell slack as she watched, her mouth agape, and dumbly lifted a hand to wipe away a tiny bead of drool. She couldn’t believe it. They hadn’t even hesitated. They just fell right in---and this was no chaste little peck. No, this was something deep and smooth and rippling with desire, something more akin to the kiss of lovers than what sisters normally shared.

Several pulses more, and eventually the Rutiles parted, though Left’s gentle fingers still lingered on her twin’s chest. They were drunk, yes, but now their eyes were full of a new headiness, their lips plumped and wet.

They shared a grin, then turned to face her.

Her jaw hung open, and bit by bit, their shame crept back in.

“Um. Uh…” Right said, discreetly plucking her sister’s hand from her body, “Did we make you uncomfortable?”

“No!” she said quickly, a hand flying to her lips. “No, not at all. I was just, um… surprised.”

“Surprised?”

Left screwed her mouth around, mortified. “Did you think we’d be more… restrained?”

“A bit,” she admitted. Then, clearing her throat and glancing away, she added “It doesn’t feel weird for you to do that?”

Their cheeks were pressed together as they responded: 

“No.”

“Not at all.”

“It seemed strange at first…”

“…but we’re used to it.”

“It feels comforting.”

“…and wonderful!”

“Like nothing else.”

“’Like nothing else’…” Rhodonite couldn’t help but slur that out again, pondering her knees as she knocked them together. “But… If you’d had lovers, you would know what ‘nothing else’ was like.”

They both bristled, but Left was the one who vocalized what they were feeling: “Oh, wonderful. Thank you for reminding us.”

Right opened her mouth; whether she was going to reply or rephrase was lost when Rhodonite crashed forward, taking them by surprise. It was all so hot, so stunning and incoherent that no one could speak as Rhodonite, for the first time, felt lips on her own, felt a chin edging against her skin. One hand wound around the back of Right’s head and her fingers fisted in the short, spiky hair. Her lips were even hotter than her skin. A kiss… it was something so new her synesthesia took a few skips to register, and when it did, it was almost iridescent. 

_Exquisite._

Rhodonite could feel both bodies moving about beneath her, but she used the grip she had on Right’s hair to push her and pull her in and out of the kiss, moving closer to press their torsos together. Those gasping lips were rough and chapped---such a nice surprise---and she moved forward to press against them with the tip of her tongue.

A palm came slapping against her shoulder, and Rhodonite sprang back. She gingerly touched at her lips as she stared at the Twins---one astonished expression, one furious. 

Eventually, her rational mind returned to the surface.

“Oh stars! I’m sorry! I… I don’t know why I did that!” she yelped, her cheeks burning and her hands flailing. “I’m sorry! I’m so sorry!”

Right was too flustered to respond, but her sister had no such restraints. “You should be!” Left retorted, but instead of the rebuke Rhodonite had been expecting, she snapped “Why did you go for _her_ instead of me?”

Had she been sober, Rhodonite might have done something different. But she wasn’t. She was three sangrias into the night, and with no liver to speak of, that was more than enough for her. With a blind fumble, she grabbed at Left, one hand on her head, another on her arm, a third on her chest---and she kissed. She kissed deeply.

Amazing… this one kissed differently. Her lips were smoother, her tongue more daring, her motions more persistent. It was as if she was trying to out-do her sister, clumsy and endearing.

With half her body draped over the Twins, she couldn’t keep track of which hand was on which part, but then she felt it---a hand on _her_ body. Her brain was too blurred to figure out if it was a right hand or a left, but it was there, and it was fondling her belly--- _did she remember to suck it in?!_ \---and wandering upwards. She gulped when that hand rested meekly upon her breast.

The thumb was poking in one direction, and after a few moments, Rhodonite figured out that said thumb was to the right. It was Right’s hand on her breast. Left’s lip in her mouth.

Then another hand, another breast. She was being _groped_ , she was… she was… she could barely think.

When she pulled off of the kiss, Left’s eyes were closed and fluttering. She glanced to Right, who was staring at her intently.

“Was that okay?” she said, her voice gurgling.

Right blinked. She looked down to her own flat chest, then back up at Rhodonite. “Y-your b-breasts are… _huge_ ,” she stammered.

Rhodonite ducked her head, smirking. “Uh, thanks. I grew ‘em myself.”

Her head wobbling, Left sucked her lower lip into her mouth and started licking it. “Are we… really doing this?”

“Doing what?”

“Doing…” Despite fumbling for her words, she didn’t quite find the right ones. “Are we going to _have sex?!_ ”

“Ssh!” Though her mind was swimming, Rhodonite at least had the sense to scan the area. “Um, no… not here.”

The questions---“Why not?” and “What’s wrong?”---were easily answered. “If Fluorite wakes up…”

She didn’t have to finish. On her hands and knees, she crawled over to the Twins and slipped her head between theirs. “Besides… Don’t look now, but we have an audience.”

And, of course, they both looked at where she was pointing without any attempt at discretion. Light was shining from an upstairs window---and when their eyes met, Lars swiftly yanked the curtains closed.

“Oops,” Left snickered. Right tried in vain to hide her blushing face under her hand, giggling. “Looks like we’ve been caught!”

After peeking over her shoulder, Rhodonite stood---correcting herself with a to-and-fro shimmy---then leaned over to help the Rutiles up. Their lean little fingers felt so delicate in her big Ruby hands. “Follow me!”


	2. Drunk

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rhodonite, nervous as ever, takes the lead with the Rutile Twins.

The Barrigas’ back yard sloped down into a copse of oak trees that were thick enough to shield them from Lars, who was still trying to steal peeks from between the curtains. As gallant as she was trying to be, the slippery grass and leaves under Rhodonite’s feet got the best of her and she ended up skidding down the little hill, dragging the Rutiles behind her. They ended up in a heap, laughing and trying to disentangle themselves.

“Well, uh…” Rhodonite shifted to the side, puffing her breath out in an attempt to blow the wet leaves from her hair. “Here we are, I guess.”

“It, uh…” Right tilted her head down and gave Rhodonite’s chin a timorous little love bite. “It’s… comfortable.”

“Are you okay?”

“Mm-hmm.” Left laughed as Right shuffled around. “I love Earth’s biodegradable carpeting.”

“I think it’s called ‘grass’.”

Rhodonite awkwardly positioned herself above them, her knees on either side of their shared pelvis, and rested her palms on the ground. Her smaller hands rose, and she carefully brushed her fingers over their cheeks. Heat was radiating from their skin. “So, you’ve never had oral sex?”

Left snorted. “We clarified that before.”

Right plucked at the grass, avoiding anyone’s gaze. “We’ve never talked dirty with anyone…” She glanced up hopefully. “…Unless this counts?”

Rhodonite’s eyes hooded as a smirk crept up her face. “Oh, my dears… you’re in for a treat.” 

Her mouth went to Left’s neck, leaving a wet suck-mark, then she turned to her twin and nibbled under her jawline. Back and forth, the edges of her lips trailed along their collarbones, over the necklines of their clothes, and she hesitantly made her way downwards, licking and kissing, until she was face-to-face with their chests.

She glanced up, the question on her face unspoken but clear.

The Twins looked like they were both making valiant efforts to hide how much they were trembling. “Go ahead,” one said, nodding, and the other softened it with a “…Please?”

As delicately as she could, Rhodonite pressed her face forward and ghosted her mouth over the slight curve of Left’s breast, small and firm, pressed nearly flat under the stretchy uniform. She kissed lightly, once, twice---and on the third, she got the flutter she’d been hoping for. Nipping at the fabric with her teeth, she began to consider how to ask them to remove it---but they intuited the question even before it had fully formed in her mind.

“We’ll, um, strip,” Right said, her throat constricting. “In a second. Um…”

Rhodonite stayed quiet, not wanting to shatter the tension. Instead of speaking, she gave their thighs a gentle squeeze.

“First thing’s first.” The Rutiles joined hands, and it looked like they were about to do something in sync---but then Right met Rhodonite’s gaze, her cheeks dark red. “Um. We know it looks a little confusing with our uniforms on, but it’ll be, um… er…”

Left found the words before she did: “It looks weirder without them.”

Rhodonite nodded, not quite sure how to respond… and then the Twins started what looked like a ritual. They touched foreheads, laced fingers, and hissed some strange words back and forth. After that odd incantation, a quiet “One, two, three,” came out in a whisper, and then they dismissed their uniforms in tandem.

Blinking, Rhodonite stared as the little glimmers disappeared from around them. She wasn’t sure what she’d been expecting. She wasn’t going to tell the Rutiles about her internal debate over their anatomy… but, in any case, it looked like Pearl won that particular bet.

Between them, they only had one pussy. Ruby had been sure there’d be two.

They seemed nervous, their arms shyly wrapped around each other, but their legs were spread. Rhodonite couldn’t help but admire. What unusual beauty…. long, wiry thighs, trim hips, perky little breasts rising up to dark nipples, soft and sweet. As much as she loved being fused, she’d always felt flabby and pudgy; these slender bodies in front of her, bizarre as they were, looked like a kind of warped perfection, something she hadn’t known she wanted.

Sweat tickled down her collar. How could she speak? What could she say?

“I can’t believe it…” Her lower eyes closed, and she sighed. Then, leaning in, she placed two light kisses on their foreheads. “You’re _lovely._ ”

She heard a wavering _“Thank you,”_ and guessed it had come from both sides at once. Neither seemed to believe her.

“I’m just curious,” she began, and placed a finger under Left’s breast. She waited for the shiver to pass, then trailed downwards. “Who can feel this?”

Left swallowed. “I can. That’s my body.”

The finger moved farther, down to the flesh just above their shared gem. “And what about now?”

“It’s… hard to describe.”

Right’s eyes widened. “We can both feel everything from the waist down, but…”

Left closed hers. “Around there? It’s a little bit of her, a little bit of me.”

Rhodonite felt her voice dropping into a purr. The skin she was touching got softer and softer as she inched on downwards. “And what about… _here?_ ”

It delighted her that they reacted differently---Right gasped and threw her head back, while Left bit into her thumb.

“I can feel that,” Left hissed.

Right squirmed, her knuckles whitening. “ _Mmm._ Me too.”

Rhodonite looked down at the finger she’d placed on the outside of their vulva, just beside one of the plumper outer lips, barely brushing their pubic hair. “Okay,” she breathed.

“Wait.”

She did, pulling back. 

Right cleared her throat. “Could you, um…”

Left had been meeting her gaze, but now her eyes were fixed on Rhodonite’s chest. “Could you take your outfit off?”

“If that’s okay?” her sister added, twiddling grass between her fingers.

Rhodonite suddenly felt all cold. She shuddered, but…

“Um, I, sure.” She braced herself, looking anywhere but down at her potential lovers. _Wow… lovers, plural._ “Just so you know, this outfit gives a lot of…” Sheepishly, she grabbed her breasts and hefted them up. “Support. Not to mention uplift.”

“Do you really think we’re going to judge?”

She ran a sweaty hand through her hair. “I’m just saying, don’t be disappointed when gravity does its thing.” 

“Rhodonite…” 

She warily eyed her thick thighs. “And there’s some compression going on, too. I mean… look, things jiggle and---”

“Rhodonite.”

Two separate hands came up to her jaw, and she leaned into their grasp, her face damp and hot.

“Please don’t denigrate yourself like that,” Right mouthed.

Left’s eyes were glimmering. “You’re gorgeous.”

“We’re not supposed to be ashamed anymore, remember?”

Of course she remembered. They’d been practicing compliments for awhile now, but they’d always been shared in front of others, simple and generic and superficial. It suddenly dawned on her that no one had ever seen her naked before. Even Morganite had only seen her breast when the evil old bitch had torn her clothes in a fit of rage… but no one had viewed the whole package. Not even her. She’d never so much as glimpsed a mirror, instead seeing everything in all its pendulous shame from the top down. It was not a flattering angle, all things considered.

She gulped.

Sensing her trepidation, Left clutched her hand and rustled her thumb over the creases in her palm. “Rhodonite… do you know what ‘Toos poolkra’ means?”

“I have no idea.”

Right smiled around her bitten lip and gave her a jaunty little wink. “It’s how we say ‘You are beautiful’.”

Rhodonite’s throat pulsed when she realized they’d just shared a part of their secret language with her. Somehow that seemed even more intimate than bare flesh. The pinch in her belly startled her, but she resolutely bowed her head, and then did what she had to do. It took a few steps---lip between teeth, knuckles clenched, eyes closed---but she finally withdrew her clothes. Under the twinkling, her body eased out of the uniform’s constriction and everything settled with an inaudible sigh.

She gulped again.

By the Diamonds… she was _naked_. She tried not to startle when she felt a whistle of wind against her belly and subconsciously clutched at it, cupping the paunch under her laced fingers. 

One by one, her eyes opened, and she gazed down at the Twins.

They looked star-struck.

Letting out a weary breath, Rhodonite picked up one of her floppy tits. “See what I mean?”

Their initial response wasn’t verbal. They just reached out, and, to her shock, their hands wandered over different parts---Right Rutile was thumbing around her puffy belly, and Left took a pubic curl in between her fingers. She tugged.

Left licked her lips. “You DO have silver streaks down there!”

“I told you she would,” her sister said with a grin.

A squeak jumped from her throat when Right’s hand rested on her breast. Rhodonite felt her forehead steaming, but the hand wasn’t grabbing or groping---Right just gently felt around, her face brimming with innocence and curiosity. 

“Oh, goodness,” Rhodonite sucked through her teeth.

“Goodness has nothing to do with it!” Her nimble fingers went around Rhodonite’s nipple, and she twisted lightly. “Stunning,” Right whispered, stars in her eyes, as the areola puckered under her touch.

Light and scandalous, Left’s fingers tickled over her Ruby, then meandered back down to her curls, hovering just a moment over her fat, dimpled belly. Rhodonite nearly choked; her inner walls pulled, but she managed to keep her tentacle from slipping out. She knew that would be too much too fast.

“Let me…” she started, then stopped. She had no idea how to end that sentence. So instead of speaking, she placed her hands on their shoulders and helped them lean back onto the hillside; then, as tenderly as she could, she pushed wet kisses down on their necks, their chests, their bellies, her heavy breasts dragging so warmly across their skin that they both let out uneven moans. “Let me just…”

Rhodonite had always taken her synesthesia for granted, but now that they were rolling around together in a damp cuddle, everything was hitched up a notch, everything so brilliantly coloured. The grass they were crushing was verdant, the feel of the Rutiles’ flesh a rich maroon, the scent of their sex like downy pink. And, over it all, the gloss of iridescence.

It nearly made her tear up.

Down, down, down… When her nose brushed over their pubic hair, Rhodonite paused to admire. _Wow_. What a plush little pussy, and such a wonder that they shared that treasure. Her chest heaved as she parted the lips with her thumbs. Stars, it looked like the frills of a supernova. 

“Oh, Twins…” She almost yelped when she saw a translucent droplet leak from deep within them. “It’s _glorious._ ”

Before they could speak, she dove in.

Her tongue went bumbling around for a moment before she spread their legs further, and then…. Right there. It was _right_ there. A hot little clit, standing up at attention. She sucked, she licked…

She heard a scream.

Rhodonite squeezed her eyes closed and started slurping. She bent in, mouth open, and went down low where the taste thickened. The first curl of her tongue between their labia tugged out another cry.

_“Rhodonite!”_

She nudged their clit with the underside of her nose, and the other voice opened up: “Please, lover, _please!_ ”

She pulled off, planting hot kisses on their thighs, and then she just fell back in. Her mouth was so full, curly hairs tickling her nostrils, plump lips between her teeth, slippery juices dribbling on her chin.

“Please, _please!_ ”

Which one had said that? She didn’t care.

A finger broached the hot, sucking pussy in front of her, and… Rhodonite gasped, tilting her head away, when she felt resistance. She tried not to look too shocked.  
Not every gem was created with that measure of security; in fact, most of the gems who emerged with hymens were of the purchasable castes---Rubies, Quartzes, Bismuths, and, of course, Pearls. It didn’t make much sense for Rutiles--- _executioners_ \---to be created that way, but she’d distinctly felt that unbroken seal just an inch or so inside of her lovers. Wiping her hand on her bare hip, she tried to meet their eyes. “…Oh.”

“We told you,” Left mumbled, her face flushed.

Rhodonite looked away, first to the side, then down to the supple thigh under her palm. “Um. We,uh, we can still have sex without tearing your veil, you know.”

“Why?”

“Yes, why bother saving it?” Left’s leg twitched, but the steadfast look on her face stayed as stolid as ever. It took her sister a moment or two to recover from her tremor, but when she did, her face melted from fear and back to resolution. “Do it, Rhodonite.”

Shakily, Rhodonite slid her finger back in, pausing when she felt the edge of their veil. It was thicker than Pearl’s had been, wider than Ruby’s. She looked at the fluid glimmering between her fingers. Their vulnerability was literally in the palm of her hand. “Are you sure?”

Left tried to smile, but it was pursed with apprehension. “Come on, please… will you…?”

Right curled her toes. “We’ve waited long enough.”

“Centuries.”

“ _Millennia._ ”

“We’ve saved it for, uh…”

“…For our first lover.” She blinked, giving a new gleam to her quiet, desperate eyes. “And that’s you, Rhodonite.”

Her twin nuzzled against her. “It’s your honour to take it.”

Doubt washed down her spine. “But it’ll hurt.”

“Only for a moment,” Left reassured her.

Rhodonite pressed her ankles together. “Um. O-okay…”

She drew in a breath of Earth’s sweet, silky air, and then plunged her finger inwards.

Immediately both legs jerked up to slap at her shoulders, and one of the Twins---whoever had the higher voice---cried out in pain.

Looking at her hand, Rhodonite tried her hardest not to flinch away when she saw the smear of blood running down to her palm. “I’m sorry! I didn’t---”

“I-it’s fine, R-Rhodonite,” came a stuttering hiss.

“We… we wanted that.” 

“Okay,” she mumbled, and then, before she could stop herself, bent down and licked the blood off her skin. She’d expected the tang, but it was spiced by a bit of copper. She shivered. That was the taste of a first time, and they’d given it to her like a gift.

She went back in.

Tilting her arm so her hand was palm-up, she felt around the wet, squeezing walls and started to curl her fingers. Though she did feel a prickle of anxiety at the back of her brain, she threw it away and pursed her lips around that stiff little clit.

The thighs on her cheeks clenched, pulling about, and a rough heel skittered on her back. Stars, her mouth was in Heaven. Rhodonite kept lapping---it was tangy and salty, from bloom to bloom and back again---and, gulping as much as she could down her throat, she shuffled her way forward. What a mouthful. What a _wonderfully_ hot mouthful. 

Her finger pulled up, her tongue went down---and that’s when a spurt gushed out. It splattered over her eyelids and cheeks, and though Rhodonite leaned back, she didn’t wipe it off. 

“S-sorry,” Right whispered.

“Don’t apologize.” Rhodonite shook a droplet off her head, blinking her sticky eyelashes, then looked at her fingers. She was up to the knuckle inside them, and that squirt assured her she’d found their sweet spot. Was it time to up the stakes? “Would you, um, like a little more?”

“More? What do you mean?”

Left was still lolling against the grass, but Right managed to prop herself up on her elbow. “You don’t mean another hand?”

“The Pearl one’s big enough!”

“We can’t take a Ruby one, too!”

“No, no, no.” Blushing, Rhodonite slid her fingers out and leaned back just far enough to show them the tentacle that was squirming against her belly. Their eyes widened.

“Damn thing has a mind of its own,” she explained lamely.

After a few moments of startled silence, Left sat up and cupped it in her palm. Rhodonite gasped; that tentacle was mostly Ruby, but Left’s skin felt almost as hot as her own.

“Do we have one of these?” Left asked, grabbing harder, and her sister’s blush crawled over her forehead and throat. “Um, I, I don’t think so.”

She nodded. “You’re right. We would have found it by now.”

“Well, n-not every gem has one,” Rhodonite said as evenly as she could---no easy task with her dampening flesh being clamped like that. The Rutiles weren’t particularly strong, but the Left one at least had a very firm grip. A little too firm, in fact. “Would you like to try it?”

“What, INSIDE?!”

Left finally let go---Rhodonite heaving a gasp of relief---and then stared at the strange liquid on her hand. She chewed her lip. “It, um, looks a bit bigger than… beginner-sized.”

Pride throbbed in her chest, but she didn’t let it get the best of her. “That’s fine! That’s fine.” She shuffled back on her knees so she was again closer to their sex, but didn’t break eye contact as she kissed the top of their mons. “I’ll just keep doing this, okay?”

“ _OH!!_ ”

“What?!”

Right’s fingertips were on her mouth. “…’Oral sex’. I just got it.”

“You’re an idiot,” she sister said, somehow affectionately.

“You’re adorable,” Rhodonite corrected, and then she tilted her head down. Four eyes and four hands were incredibly useful at a time like this; two eyes watched while the others heaved shut, and though one hand went back to the gentle fingering, a larger one ran under her body, over her breast, her belly, then down to her stem. Shoving her legs together, she began to pump her fist up and down in time to her licking.

She didn’t have long to wait.

The first spasm knocked her knuckles together, and Left pounded her palm against the ground. “Rho-Rhodonite!”

Another squeeze, and Right swooned against the hillside. “I think… I think I’m coming!”

_Well that was fast._ She flashed a smile against their pussy then opened her mouth again. _I guess I AM good at some things!_

Apparently their minds were too far gone for sentences; while one was shouting her name, the other couldn’t do much more than whine “Please! Please! Please!” over and over like a prayer. Again she pushed against that spot, her teeth grazing their clit, and again the Twins squirted. This time it missed her face, dotting her shoulder instead.

“Rhodonite!”

“ _PLeEee---EEEEASE!_ ”

Arms below them, their pelvis jutted right off the ground and, for a few seconds, they stayed frozen like that, nothing moving but the rippling in their pussy and the tiny kicks against the muddied grass. Rhodonite’s fingers uncrossed inside them and they slumped back down, air whistling as they both gasped. Grinning as wide as she ever had, Rhodonite sat back on her heels and ran her one unsullied hand over her face; her member was still stiff and lurching back and forth, but she could deal with that later. Right now she had some gloating to do…

…but the smile immediately disappeared when she heard a sob. 

While Right was slowly stirring in and out of her ‘little death’, Left had her knee up to her belly, her knuckles bitten in a twisted, open mouth. Tears were streaming out of her screwed-up eyelids.

“Oh my stars!” Rhodonite gracelessly crawled up beside her, dirtying her elbows and knees, and grabbed Left’s head in her hands. “I---I’m sorry! I didn’t mean to hurt you! I didn’t---”

She felt a hand drift through her hair, and gawked at the bizarrely calm look on Right’s face. “It’s fine, lover. She just gets weepy sometimes after an orgasm.”

“But---”

Left burbled as she shook in her grasp, tears flowing. “Rho-ho- ho-donite, d-do you love me? Do you love me??”

Astonished, she pushed Left’s head down to her bosom and cradled her softly. “Yes, of course I do, Lefty!” she cooed, using the nickname so rarely spoken aloud before. “Of course I love you!”

She gingerly eased her body onto the wet ground and placed a kiss on the top of her head; she was still eyeing Right, who just nodded and rolled over to pet her twin’s empty shoulder. “See? She loves you. Shh, now.”

It felt strange with Left clutched between them, but Rhodonite draped her two left arms over both the Twins and pulled Right into the hug. She was glad Rutiles didn’t have noses, because the way Left was bawling, her chest would have been covered in snot by now. “You’re sure this is okay?”

Right nodded and kissed her sister’s temple. “Yes. This happens a lot.” Then she snickered. “She’s always been the emotional one.”

“Shut up,” Left murmured from Rhodonite’s cleavage.

“You shut up.”

“No, you!”

“You’re a dork.”

“I know you are, but what am I?”

“Okay, Twins, that’s enough.” Rhodonite tucked her chin on Left’s head and gave Right’s elbow a firm squeeze. “Let’s just try to calm down.”

The broken dam of Left’s crying had slowed down somewhat, and she nuzzled feebly against Rhodonite’s breasts. “That… that was pretty intense.”

Again she felt that startling, unusual sense of pride. Who knew she’d be a good lover?! “Mm.”

Right’s eyes met Rhodonite’s over her sister’s head. “Speaking of which, you don’t seem to have…” She pointed down, and Rhodonite could feel her face heating when she realized her tentacle was slowly rubbing along Left’s hip, poking around like it was trying to find its goal. “Oh, n-no,” she spluttered, waving a hand, “That’s nothing, don’t worry about it. It’ll go away on its own.”

“No, it’s fine! Let me…”

She reached over and carefully touched her fingers to the surface. It twitched back, and she gasped.

“Please don’t grab as hard as your sister did,” Rhodonite said with a little chuckle. “She nearly pinched it off.”

“Sorry,” Left said quietly.

“I’ll be gentle,” Right murmured. True to her word, she only took it in a light grasp, her thumb brushing over the upper ridge. Rhodonite opened her mouth to say something---praise, maybe?---but she lost her words when she felt Left’s wet lips wrapping around her nipple.

Glossed by the dampness running down her length, Right began to tenderly move her hand up and down, and somehow knew to flick her fingers a bit when they came to the tip, squeezing at the base. Between that and the placid nursing on her breast, it only took Rhodonite a few minutes to buck her hips and come spilling over the edge. She moaned, raw and low, and her spend splashed up through Right’s fingers and over her thigh.

Huffing roughly, she put her head on the ground, one hand still in Left’s hair; an eye opened and she watched, a little chagrined, as Right lifted her hand and tested the viscosity between her fingers. The shame kicked up a bit when she put said fingers into her mouth.

“Hmm… zesty,” she commented, glancing at Rhodonite with a smirk.

The suckling on her nipple had ceased, and when she looked down, she let out a squeak. “Oh my stars, she’s unconscious!”

“She never did last long.” Right placed her sticky hand on Rhodonite’s shoulder and leaned over her sister’s body to give a timid, jumpy peck to the point of her nose. “You know, I feel a little sleepy myself.”

Rhodonite licked her lips, then sighed as she felt her upper eyes close. “Me too.”

The embrace was warm and honeyed and welcome, more than anything else she’d ever felt, and Rhodonite caressed Right’s cheek as she allowed herself to drift off. 

“Good night.”

Right pulled closer. “Good night, lover.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, the language:
> 
> Voo-too, sorrir? = Do you want to, sister?  
> Ie l’voo telmaw. El ossi = I want it very much. She does too.   
> Debemus = We must
> 
> All three of them have hang-ups about their bodies. Also, I tried to play on the trope of virginity in a lot of fanfics with the "veil" thing, so hope you liked ;) I think there'll be one more chapter.


	3. Hungover

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> How different do things look in the sober light of dawn?

Morning broke like a blister, and the rightmost Rutile began to stir. Consciousness shredded through the wonderful dream she’d fallen into, and bit by agonizing bit, she awoke.

She immediately regretted it.

“Wha… what?” The sunbeams that had seemed so welcoming yesterday now sliced into her like searing scalpels. She’d had headaches before, but this was a whole new kind of pain---stars, it felt like her temples were going to explode! She crammed her eyelids shut against the intrusive light, her sweaty palm grinding on her brow. “Ough, my _head…_ ”

Despite her body’s protests, she peeked through her fingers and blinked a few times until her vision cleared. It didn’t help much. She could barely believe the scene before her---bodies all tangled up in a sweaty, naked embrace, low and base and _taboo_ , too much for her foggy mind to process. She winced as she closed her fingers again; the longer she stared, the more memories came trickling through the muddy dam of her drunkenness, and her belly went to ice with worry.

_Did we…?_ she thought in the one corner of her brain that wasn’t throbbing. _Did we really…?_ Sweat bloomed on her scalp and she nervously scratched her neck as she stared down at Left; she could usually keep a level head in trying situations, but without her twin there to reassure her… it felt like dancing on the lip of a chasm. She knew the difference between loneliness and isolation, and they both frightened her in very different ways.

After wiping the dew from her hand, she reached over and gave Left’s shoulder a squeeze. “Sister?”

She was still fast asleep, her head buried in Rhodonite’s breasts and a big, dumb, blissful smile on her face. Annoyed, and with growing agitation, Right poked her forehead. “Hey!”

Left stirred, then shuffled back down into her lover’s chest, purring happily. Right groaned and poked her again. “Hey! HEY!” She pinched her cheek and twisted. “Hey! Are you awake?”

Finally, her eyelids flickered and she turned over with a sour grimace. “I am NOW.”

Ah. Relief flooded over that bramble of anxiety, and Right greeted her twin with a light kiss between the eyes. “It took you long enough!”

Though she did grumble a bit, the irritation bled off her face, and Left cuddled against her sister. “How long was I out?”

“I’m not sure. I just woke up.” She ran her tongue over her teeth. “Still… too long.”

“Mm.”

More of last night’s memories came in cut-up fragments. That sting deep in her sex was still there, echoing with the remembrance of fingers and lips and… “What happened last night?” Right’s face was already flushed, but when her thumb grazed over the gummy spend on her thigh, her cheeks heated so much she could swear she felt steam rising. Despite her smile, her voice dropped to a hush as she leaned toward her sister. “Did we---did we _have sex?!_ ”

Even though Left’s bleary eyes squinted in pain, her voice dissolved into a giggle. “Of course we did! She had this---this tentacle-thing and everything! She even used her mouth to…” She faltered, but didn’t look away. “Don’t you remember?”

“I… I sort of remember, but it’s all blurry.” She shuddered as the growing light burned her eyes, and brought a hand up to shield them. “ _Argh._ Sister, I-I think there’s something wrong with my form. I don’t feel well.”

“Neither do I,” she replied, squirming against the grass; it looked like her smile was caught on one corner, the other sagging as reality set in. “My head hurts. And there’s this weird feeling in my belly…”

Right tried to get up, but Left was still flat on the ground. “Come on. We need to go ask someone about this. Someone who’s awake.”

Left looked at the elbow pinned under her lover’s hips, and nudged her with her knee. “Rhodonite, um, I need my arm back.”

Smacking her lips in her sleep, Rhodonite rolled over, but… not the right way. Instead she flopped her heavy arm over them both and pulled them into a crushing hug, now loudly snoring.

“Okay, we’ll ask someone later,” Right grumbled, her temple pressed right up against her sister’s. She sighed. “I guess it could be worse. At least we’re in the arms of a very pretty gem.”

“I wasn’t thinking about her _arms_ ,” Left said gleefully.

“That’s another thing.” The smile came before she could stop it. “It was kind of rude of you to hog her breasts all night, don’t you think?”

She nuzzled down deeper. “Don’t be jealous. Maybe next time she’ll put _your_ head here.”

“Next time?”

Left tilted her head just enough to meet her sister’s eye. “There… is going to be a next time, isn’t there?”

Right didn’t answer, and Left didn’t pry; they both knew that wasn’t up to them to decide.

The question lingered there between them, and they just stared silently as the growing light came filtering through the trees. It wasn’t until the damn birds started squawking that they both cringed in pain and broke eye contact.

“Agh! That racket’s going to crack me in half!” Right groaned, making a pathetic effort to plug her ears. “We really should wake her up.”

“Hold on, I’ll try.” Still fidgeting with the arm that was trapped under those ample hips, Left dipped her head and gave the swell of Rhodonite’s breast a gentle nip. When that didn’t work, she shimmied down lower and licked her Pearl, first up and over the slight irregularity on the surface, then all around the setting, ending with one tiny, audible suckle.

That did the trick. Rhodonite snapped from dreaming to awake, coughing and spluttering as she jerked straight up. “Wha? Huh?” She didn’t seem to notice Left pulling her half-numb arm out from under her. After shaking her head a few times, she shoved the heel of her palm against her eyesocket and began to knead. “What? Was I… was I asleep?”

 

 

 

Right snickered. “You don’t normally snore when you’re wide awake.”

“Or drool,” her sister said, wiping her collarbone.

The teasing went right over her head. Groaning, Rhodonite scuffed her ass further up the hill and braced her heels against the ground; her eyes flew open, and for a second it looked like the previous night’s activities were scrolling through her mind, but instead of the question obviously forming on her lips, she just stammered “Wait! I, uh… ugh.” Tangling her fingers in her curls, Rhodonite forced her eyes shut against the encroaching light. “Uh, Twins? I… think something’s wrong.”

“Your head hurts?”

“And something’s gone sour in your belly?”

“Yes! Yes, that’s it exactly!” Slowly opening her eyes again, she looked down at her naked body, and flushed a deep purple. She meekly folded her arms around her torso; silly as it seemed, she suddenly felt stripped and raw. “Same with you?”

Left was still trying to shake the pins and needles out of her arm. “Yes, of course.”

“So it’s not just me.” Rhodonite ran a leery fingertip first over her Ruby, then her Pearl, testing for fissures. Aside from a light sheen of saliva, they were the same as ever. “Okay, my gems are fine. That can’t be it.” She only met the Rutiles’ gaze for a split-second. “Are yours? Uh, I mean, _is_ yours?”

They hadn’t checked, but didn’t need to. “It’s fine. Well, as ‘fine’ as it can be.”

That didn’t help; they could almost see that familiar red-hot ball of anxiety pinging around inside Rhodonite’s skull. “Y-you don’t think Lars poisoned us, do you?”

“No, no, he wouldn’t do that,” Right hurriedly said.

Left reached over and grabbed her hand. “Not on purpose, at least.” Rhodonite’s skin was even clammier than hers, but the little squeeze Left gave her seemed to make the fretting tick down a notch. “Maybe that ’alcohol’ affects gems differently than humans.”

Her sister agreed. “There’s no way he could have known.”

“Our memories are a little fuzzy, too,” Right said, offering Rhodonite the blanket that had pooled in their laps. She took it gratefully and threw it around her shoulders like a muddy, grass-stained cape.

Toying with the seam, Rhodonite eventually forced herself to look at her lovers. “I… well… I do remember last night, even if it is ‘fuzzy’.” Her toes curled in the damp grass. “…Do you?”

With shy, matching smiles, they nodded.

Rhodonite sucked a useless breath into her chest, then let it go---but she was still pulling into herself, the distress in her core looped in dark strings all around. Her fingernails dug into her skin as she mumbled “So we… We did that? We really had sex?”

“We certainly did!” Without conscious thought, the Twins tapped their knees together; though Left had her rosy, grinning face pointed to the ground, Right glanced at her with a twinkle in her eye. “And it was _amazing._ ”

Rhodonite tried to jump to her feet but missed by a few inches, and went skidding right back on her ass. For a second her arms flailed around, loose and rubbery, but she managed to corral them, if only to prop herself back up. “Okay. Okay! Okay.” She rose groggily and held all her hands up, eyes closed and face ashen. “Okay, let’s, uh, let’s just be calm about this…”

“Who’s nervous?” Left whispered, and smirked when her sister gave her a swat.

“Here’s what we’ll do.” Rhodonite twisted her fingers around, one hand at her lips, resisting the urge to start gnawing on her cuticles. “I’ll go back first. You count to fifty---no, make it a hundred!---then you follow.” Her head was bobbing as she made a futile effort to reassure herself. “Just be calm and casual. No one has to know this is a Walk of Shame.” She stared at the house through the trees, and she blanched when she saw the window their Captain had been peeping out of. “Um. No one but Lars, that is.”

Her lower eyes strayed back to the Twins, and her spine bolted upright when she saw their expressions. They looked dumbfounded. “’Walk of Shame’?”

Rhodonite’s smile was thin and strained. “I keep forgetting how innocent you really are,” she murmured. “It’s, um, when someone has to walk back home after a one-night stand.”

And now they looked like they’d been slapped. _”What?!”_

Rhodonite exhaled, her chest deflating. “I’m just not saying anything right today, am I?” she said to no one in particular.

“’One night stand’,” Right repeated, very slowly and carefully, each syllable sinking, and when Left took her turn, her voice was barely a breath above a whisper. “You mean… Rhodonite, I… I thought this was… wasn’t… going to be…”

Right briefly touched their gem, right where it was split. “Don’t you want to do this again?”

Like a blown candle, Left’s gaze went to the ground, her knee, her stump---anywhere but Rhodonite’s face. “…Was it that bad?”

“No no no! Not at all! I---” Rhodonite smeared her knuckles over her eyelids---doing little more than clouding her vision further---and studied the two worried faces before her. She tried not to chuckle; how odd for _her_ to be the one calming someone down! “I didn’t mean it like that. Not at all.”

Before they could respond, she grabbed both their hands and clasped them together, palm-to-palm, dwarfed in her own.

“Twins… listen to me.”

She brought the bundle of hot, sticky fingers up to her chest and clutched them tightly. Even with the ache in her head and the biliousness rolling her gut, Rhodonite could feel the Rutiles’ trepidation washing over her, seeping into her core.

Amazing how it only took two kisses---one to each cheek---to chase that off.

“It was… words can’t describe it.” Here she shuffled closer, their knees touching, skin-to-skin. “But ‘beautiful’ comes close. Um, how did you say it last night? Something like ‘toos poolkra’?”

Right grinned. “Something like that, yes.”

“You got the pronunciation a little wrong,” Left added with a smile of her own, “But not bad for a beginner.”

“I’m surprised you remembered even that much!”

Warmth sprouted somewhere in her sternum, and Rhodonite spent a moment just enjoying the unadulterated happiness. “What can I say? I’m a fast learner.”

“So are we.”

“Maybe you, uh…” Biting her lip, Left gave her a little wink. “Maybe you could teach us a trick or two.”

Both Rutiles laughed when Rhodonite’s blush spread all across her face, and they got to their feet with only a bit of a wobble. “We’ll go back first,” Right reassured her.

“That’s right. We’ll take the, er, Walk Of Shame while you compose yourself.”

Though she wasn’t looking directly in their direction, Rhodonite could see glimmers out of the corner of her eye, and dimly made a note to ask them how in the world they managed to coordinate phasing their clothes on and off.

Right cleared her throat. “So… we’ll see you later?”

“Wait a minute.”

The quilt had slipped from her shoulders, and Rhodonite was looking at it with a piercing intensity. Eventually her upper eyes lifted, but the look on her face was still inscrutable. “Where did this blanket come from?”

Right opened her mouth, but then realized she had no idea what to say. A quick peek at her sister showed that she didn’t either.

Rhodonite’s brows were furrowing together. “We didn’t have a blanket last night, did we?”

Left bent and lifted the quilted corner to inspect. “I don’t think we did…”

With a sudden gasp of mortification, Right’s face flashed from ashen to red-hot and back again. “Oh no,” she whispered, her eyes bugging. “It must have been Lars!”

“Oh. Of course. Of _course_ it was Lars,” her sister growled as she threw it back down. “He WAS trying to watch us!”

“So he… he came when we were asleep, and put it over us?”

“Maybe he was trying to be nice. You know, preserve our modesty.”

She nodded, still grimacing. “I guess that makes sense.”

Rhodonite’s eyes were flicking back and forth as she followed their conversation, and decided to add her two cents---useless as she knew they’d be. “You know, it’s kind of embarrassing he saw us like…. Like _this._ ”

That prompted an unexpected snicker from Left. “Well, you saw him with his pants down once, didn’t you?”

“I suppose you could call it even,” Right said with a reluctant smile of her own.

“I guess,” Rhodonite said, her voice wavering. “It’s just…” She blinked, then thumbed over the stitched pattern. “This looks familiar.” It took a few beats before the gears grinding away in her mind clicked into place, and her face went slack with shock as the realization washed over her. “Wasn’t this the quilt Fluorite was wearing?”

...

They looked at each other and screamed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Nothing quite like that moment of realization! :D
> 
> This is probably the end of this "arc", but I really do want to write some more smut of them when they're sober. Thanks so much for reading!

**Author's Note:**

> I'll translate the Twins' language in the next chapter. I know I'm the only person in the world who likes this ship, but, uh... thanks for reading! ;)


End file.
